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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 22:11:39 GMT
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In article <jqbD3r4G1.F7r@netcom.com>, Jim Balter <jqb@netcom.com> wrote:
>Computers may not be powerful enough to learn simply because it would take too
>long to feed enough inputs or too long to see the results to be practical in
>terms of human or real-world limitations.  Perhaps no current computer could
>complete a learning task faster than its MTBF.  Or, if "computer" means a
>computer system that includes software, this may simply be a comment upon the
>power of the algorithms that we have so far developed.  If by "power" you
>simply mean theoretical computational power, then the word loses all meaning;
>pdp8's, Pentium's, and Cray's are all equally "powerful".

All good points.

>This discussion of course has implications for Searle's comments regarding
>computers made of catgut and eggshells or whatever.

I hate to defend Searle, but he was just making fun of the way that some
AI types toss around "TM-equivalent".  Ideas in one discipline sometimes
sound completely absurd to outsiders, who inevitably take theoretical 
abstractions and shorthand simplifications as claims about reality.
